Munich, Germany - ERC Ingolstadt and the Augsburger Panther suffered setbacks in the DEL playoff race Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the Hamburg Freezers and Mannheim Adler, who came out on the winning end of Tuesday nights contests, moved into a third-place tie and are only five points shy of first place in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga.

Künast, Hamburg blank Ingolstadt

Brad Purdie scored the only goal of the game and Christian Künast turned aside 29 shots for his first shutout of the season as the Hamburg Freezers edged ERC Ingolstadt 1-0 (1-0, 0-0, 0-0) at Hamburg’s ColorLine Arena. Purdie one-timed a feed from Andy Schneider past ERC netminder Jimmy Waite at 12:50 of the opening frame as the Freezers recorded their seventh win in eight games. Waite made 17 saves.

Mannheim travels to Augsburg, puts on goal-scoring clinic

Tomas Martinec tallied a pair of goals and Robert Hock had three assists as the Mannheim Adler routed the Augsburg Panther on the road, 7-2 (1-1, 2-1, 4-0). Augsburg’s Xavier Delisle notched two power-play goals.

Rene Corbet broke a 2-2 tie at 12:08 of the middle frame, ripping a one-timer past Panther netminder Magnus Eriksson. The floodgates opened after Mannheim scored back-to-back goals early in the third. Todd Hlusko scored on the man advantage at the 3:39-mark and Martinec capped an odd-man rush with Hock just 34 seconds later to make it 5-2. Martinec’s second tally and a goal by Niko Pyka rounded out the scoring. Mike Kennedy and Devin Edgerton (power-play) scored in the opening frame.

Tight race for final playoff berth

With 15 games remaining in the regular season, Hamburg and Mannheim both have a 22-15 record (66 points) and trail the Berlin Eisbären and Frankfurt Lions, who are tied for first place, by only five points. 7th-place Augsburg (20-17/61 pts.) and 8th-place Ingolstadt (20-16/59 pts.) cling to the final two playoff spots, just barely ahead of the 9th-place DEG Metro Stars (20-15/58 pts.).